I’m not saying all good churches leave a constant bitter taste lingering on your palette. But if you find these attitudes to be too bitter to swallow, perhaps its time to consider whether you’re looking for a biblical, healthy church that please Jesus, or if you are looking for a social club focused on keeping its clientele comfortable.

The event also made both of us wonder why it seems sometimes to be the case that one’s faith is thought to be stronger if one prays for healing than it is if one simply accepts life as it is and makes the most of it with all of its joys and sorrows.

There is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking than the idea of hell. It is so unpopular with us that few would give credence to it at all except that it comes to us from the teaching of Christ Himself.

And therefore, we silence those false claims that the old person inside us would otherwise promote. We renounce them, and we set our eyes on heaven, even through the things of this earth, for behold, “[our] reward is great in heaven.”

To paraphrase Jesus’ words, the Lord told Peter, “I say to you that you are a small stone, and upon this bedrock I will build My church.” It was a play on words that made a significant spiritual point.

As the pulpit goes, so goes the church. The deeper the preacher takes his flock into the Word of God, the higher they will rise in worship. The stronger they are in the Scripture, the stronger they will be in the pursuit of holiness.

Do you ever have those days where you just want to sin? Sin looks delicious while righteousness looks distasteful. Sin looks satisfying and holiness looks frustrating. You wake up in the morning with a desire to do what you know you should not desire to do.—What do you do on a day like that?

Yes, we are given the Holy Spirit who conforms us into the image of Christ. But our old nature, our built-in-at-conception sinful nature still lives within us. So what do we do with these sins? How can we overcome our sin?

Three times, Joseph emphasized that God’s hand was behind it all. Joseph was not excusing his brothers’ sin—he was emphasizing the fact that the Lord uses even the wicked choices of sinful people to accomplish His sovereign purposes.

If I don’t like something I read in Scripture, perhaps I simply don’t understand it. If so, studying it again may help. If, in fact, I do understand the passage and still don’t like it, this is not an indication there is something wrong with the Bible. It’s an indication that something is wrong with me, something that needs to change.

Conservatives need to be challenged by Jesus’ willingness to socialize with “sinners.” Indeed, they were powerfully drawn to him. Liberals, on the other hand, need to be cautioned against depicting Jesus as an easy going, always-affirming dude’s dude who loved to blast religion and hang out at frat parties.

But, in the midst of the chaos and carnage, are there lessons that we can learn from the German liberal theologians and higher critics, even if it is almost entirely from their negative example? I think so.

Because they were undiluted theology conveyed to the mind and heart through Watts’ poetic imagination and gifted wonder, his people—and all who sing Watts’ hymns today—were dazzled with the splendor of Christ and the gospel.

Therefore, what we see is that these three synonymous terms emphasizes a different aspect of the office of elder and the man who serves in this way – we learn of his function, his character, and his attitude.